Title: Outage

By: Annie Lune

Summary: Power outages can make people do strange things…GS

Rating: PG-13…. for swearing and just in case.

Disclaimer: Must I go through this again? It only makes me sad. 

Spoilers: None that I can think of off the top of my head. This definitely takes place after Butterflied, so it you haven't seen that I guess some things may be considered spoilers for you.  

A Note: like most of my ideas, this one came to me out of the blue. Power outages are strange things.

Very many thanks to Rae for beat-ing this for me on such sort notice. Any grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes can be tossed in her general direction.

Reviews = welcomed. Flames = mocked forevermore.

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It was a normal evening at the lab.

Warrick was in the break room, sipping a cup of coffee. His shoes were off and his feet were up on the table in front of him. He had yesterday's paper in his lap and he was flipping though the sports section, looking to see if his team had won. No, he hadn't bet anything – this time – but he still wanted to know if his baseball team was winning.

Catherine was in ballistics with Rich, talking to him about a rifle that had just come in. It left a distinctive mark on the bullet when fired, and Catherine was running the thing through the search engines. So far, her search had come up negative, but that didn't keep her from trying some more. Her eyes were beginning to hurt from staring at the computer so long, so she got up to stretch leaving Rich on computer duty. Picking up the rifle, she studied it trying to find anything distinguishing about it.

Greg was in his lab running some stuff through CODIS. The music was up as loud as it could go (obviously), and he was happily singing along to the rock music. No one had told him to turn it down, or off for that matter, and he was not planning on it unless someone thought he was disturbing the peace. Day shift had loaded him with samples they needed for the morning, and they sat in front of Greg staring him in the face. He would get to them after he had finished his work for the night shift.

Sara was in the layout room with a piece of broken glass that she was trying to put back together. Something had crashed through the glass, and Sara was trying to determine what it was and in what direction it had come from. If that wasn't bad enough, it was stained glass and that should have made Sara's work easier. Instead, she was beginning to get frustrated with all of the little colored pieces. It was a lot of tedious work and the whole thing was giving her a whopper migraine, but she still pressed on. Sara was determined to get this stupid thing put back together.

Nick was in the locker room, getting ready to take a shower. He had just come back from a scene with a decomposing body, and he smelled like the grim reaper. He had a bunch of lemons with him that Sara had supplied from her personal stash. Nick was looking quite forward to relaxing in the warm shower. He tossed a change of clothes on one of the benches and made his way towards the showers in the back.

Grissom was in his office with the lights off and the door closed. Just like Sara, he had a whopper migraine too, but he was allowed to slack off a little bit by 'doing paperwork.' This actually meant that Grissom could take as long as he wanted to sit in his office and rest. He was in no mood to deal with anyone right now. He reclined there in his chair with the door closed hoping that no one would come to disturb him for a while. 

The clock in the lab read 12:43 p.m.

At 12:44 p.m., a gust of wind coming from the north blew by the lab, and blew right through the branches of a nearby tree. The tree was old and had seen many breezes before, but this one was rather strong and the tree couldn't hold out. Instead of holding it's ground, the tree fell over. The tree fell right onto a power line next to it, and both fell to the earth with a crash and little sparks. Since all of the power lines are connected, three more fell to the ground with it like a domino effect. And since power lines hold power, at this, the power line was broken, thus disconnecting all power running through it.

And following that disconnected line of power would bring you right to the Las Vegas Crime Lab, where the power then went out at 12:45 p.m.

Warrick sat straight up, and spilled his coffee all over his pants.

Catherine dropped the rifle she was holding, and it fired one shot into the nearest wall.

Greg fell over in his chair and smacked his head on the desk. Now not only were his ears ringing, but his head was too.

Sara stumbled over her feet, and fell backwards onto the floor, pulling half of the glass from the table with her.

Nick dropped the lemons he was holding, and then trying to find his way out, slipped on one of them and came crashing to the floor himself.

Grissom didn't flinch.

Silence ran through the now darkened crime lab. For a few moments, no one moved no matter where they were. It had never been this dark in the lab before, and most people had a hard time adjusting to the lack of light. There weren't any back up generators in the lab because they were old and obsolete and this type of thing only happened to the casinos. The back up generates located behind the lab had seen better days, and this was not one of them and did not click on when the other power failed. The casinos sure had new backup generators, but not buildings like the crime lab.  So, this meant that there wasn't going to be any light in the lab at all, considering the fact that it was now quarter of one at night.

Nick was the fist to move, because he was sitting on the tile floor of the shower, and water was still coming down on top of him. He found the wall and then searched for the water tap to switch it off. Of course Nick couldn't find it. He fumbled for a few seconds until his hand hit metal and he flipped the lever the other way. But the water didn't stop flowing. Instead, it came out harder and now a whole lot colder. Nick flinched for a moment, and then flipped the lever the other way, hence cutting the water supply. He stood up and reached for his towel and wrapped it around the lower half of his body. Stepping out of the shower, he peered into the darkness hoping to remember where he had left his clothes. But this is Nick we are talking about, and he couldn't for the life of him remember which direction they lay in. 

Catherine was in a total panic because she feared that she had shot someone by accident, and bent down and tried madly to find the rifle. Rich had already found it and placed it back up on the table, but Catherine didn't know that. She crawled around on the floor feeling with her hands for something that would match the rifle description. Instead she crawled right into the table and bumped her head. Rich heard this and somehow managed to find Catherine and got her to her feet. She thanked him for doing this, and tried to maneuver her way out of the room, but instead walked right into the wall and fell backwards over the nearest table. She landed with a hard thud on the floor and Rich began to search for her once again.

Greg lay there on the floor, staring into the blackness. He was a little mad because he had just lost all of his work on the computer because he rarely bothered to save what he was doing. Grissom was going to give him an earful about that later. Greg got to his feet and picked his chair back up. Now all he had to do was find his stereo, because when the power did come back on, and music would start blaring once again. Trying to stand back up, he bumped his head on the table and called out a friendly four-letter word and staggered back. Finally, he made it to his stereo and switched it off.

Warrick tried to find some napkins to clean up his little spill, but instead he walked into the couch and slipped the rest of the coffee there. And it was hot coffee of course, why wouldn't it be? Warrick gave up that failed attempt, and decided to try and make his way towards the hall instead. Maybe the others would congregate there. But it was dark, and Warrick could not see and spent some time trying to locate the break room door.

Sara sat in shock on the floor. She was scared to move because of the glass shards now spewed over the place. She was also a little pissed because all of her hard work was now seriously tainted. She somehow got to her feet, and began her attempt out of the room. She hadn't taken one step when she heard the crushing glass sound beneath her feet and silently swore at the fact that now her work was tainted. Sara tried shuffling her feet out of the room, but that only sent the pieces in every direction and finally Sara sighed and took a few giant steps out of the room.

Grissom still didn't do anything.  He hadn't noticed that the power was no longer on in the lab because his computer and stereo were both off at the time. The quite darkness was still welcoming to him, and he didn't mind it one bit.

Warrick was the first to make it out into the hallway after finally finding the break room door. He squinted trying to locate some source of light, but instead heard Sara's quite mumbling from the other direction.

"Sara?" he called to her and took a few steps forward in what he believed to be her direction. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Never better," Was Sara's dry response. She was in no mood to actually make pleasant interactions with anyone else and was wondering if she could find the exit and make her way out to her awaiting car.

"Where are you?" Warrick called, trying to find her location. He stuck his hands out in front of him to stop himself from walking into any one or anything. It didn't work. In a matter of seconds he had come in contact with some other person, who he perceived to be Sara.

"Oof!" Warrick grunted as he fell to the floor.

"Do you want to get off me?" Greg asked, rolling out from underneath Warrick. "I never imagined we would end up like this."

Warrick pushed back and got to his feet, helping Greg up afterwards.

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." Greg mumbled, brushing himself off.

"Do you two want to stop fooling around?" Sara's voice came from the other direction. "What the hell happened here?"

"I think aliens landed and are planning to take over the lab and enslave us all for their own scientific purposes." Greg replied, as chipper as ever. He heard Sara snort and then her footsteps coming down the hall. "Or we lost power." He added, hoping to avoid any beating she was planning on giving him.

"Are we totally inept when the power goes out? Don't we have generators for when this happens?" Sara said, coming to a stop a few feet away from where Warrick and Greg stood.

"Not ones that are actually working," Warrick replied, scratching his head. "Now what are we to do?"

"Make a fire?" Greg suggested.

"This isn't Survivor." Sara snapped.

"It might turn out to be if things keep going this way." He retorted, and then stepped to the side as Sara took a swing at him. She missed and her fist came in contact with Warrick instead.

"Ow!" He cried, and rubbed his shoulder blade, "Can't we all just get along for once?"

"If we can barely do that in the light, how are we supposed to do it in the dark?" Catherine's voice came from down the hall. She then flicked the flashlight she had found on and illuminated the hallway for everyone.

"I bring the source of power," she said, making her way towards them. "Does no one else have a light?" 

"Mine's in my kit, and that could be anywhere." Warrick sighed as Catherine joined their little pow-wow.

Catherine surveyed the scene, "Where's Nick?"

Sara shrugged her shoulders, "I think he was going to take a shower, but I haven't seen him for a while."

"Great," Catherine moaned, "I'm going to go get Grissom." She departed from the three of them and continued down the hall towards Grissom's office. She didn't bother knocking because it was highly unlike that Grissom would answer. Catherine pushed open the door and shown her flash light at him.

"This isn't an interrogation." Grissom mumbled from his seat, "Can't you just turn on the light?"

Dimming her beam, Catherine took a few steps in, "It's out."

"Then I'll get another bulb." Grissom opened his eyes and looked up at her.

"No, all of the lights are out. We lost power, Gil."

"That's not good." Grissom replied and pushed his chair back from his desk.

"Yeah, considering that we've now got a bunch of confused CSIs out there. They're acting like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off."

Grissom stood up and walked over to his kit where his flashlight was located. "Their heads cut off, eh?" he said as he searched through his kit. But his searched turned up nothing. His light was not in there.

"What do you want me to do?" Catherine asked flatly.

"Where's CLUE?" Grissom suggested as he left the room with Catherine on his heels.

"Grissom, no one wants to play CLUE with someone who cheats." She stated rolling her eyes as she neared Warrick, Sara and Greg who all still stood in the middle of the hall way.

"I do not cheat," Grissom defended, "I make careful observations."

"Oh no, we're not playing CLUE." Warrick groaned figuring out what Grissom and Catherine were bickering over. "You always win, Grissom."

Grissom smiled to himself, but no one saw it. Catherine was hogging all of the light for herself and would only direct it in another direction when someone was speaking. The five of them stood there in the middle of the hallway, unsure of what to do next.

"Where's Nick?" Grissom finally asked after a minute of silence had passed between all of them.

"We're not sure." Sara shrugged.

"I'm over here," Nick's voice came faintly. Catherine made a motion to direct the flashlight in his vicinity, but Nick staggered to the side and hollered. "No! Keep that thing over there."

"Don't you want light, Nick?" Catherine asked, glancing his way.

Nick shook his head and gripped his towel tighter. "No, not on me right now. I'm sort of having some technical difficulties."

"Technical difficulties?" Grissom questioned.

After a moment of hesitation, Nick spoke. "I can't find my clothes."

"Oh come on Nick, that's indecent exposure." Greg quipped.

"No, I found a towel, but I couldn't find anything else." He replied, his voice not as strong as it usually was.

Grissom sighed, "Sara, why don't you go and help Nick find his clothes?"

Sara was started, "What? No, I'm not helping towel boy. You can help him, Grissom." She sneered back at him. How could he suggest for her to go and do that?

"I'll help him," Catherine stated, rolling her eyes in the darkness. "I know what's it's like to be in public without clothing."

"Does everything need to be alluded to your time on the pole?" Greg cracked.

"Just for that, you can come help me." Catherine deadpanned and grabbed Greg's sleeve and dragged him in the opposite direction. Catherine, her light source and Greg made it half way down the hallway before Warrick spoke.

"If she kills him now, we'll never find the body." He said, and started off after them. Nick was already around the corner for fear of Catherine's light wandering to places it shouldn't.

Soon, they all disappeared leaving no light in the hallway at all. Sara sighed and turned to open the break room door and Grissom followed her. It wasn't until after the door had closed behind him that it hit Sara hard; she was alone with Grissom in the dark room.

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Silly me. I forgot the to be continued…

TO BE CONTINUED